Media independent handover (MIH) is a service frame used for assisting and optimizing mobile services in a heterogeneous network. A relation between the MIH service and other network hierarchical protocol is as shown in FIG. 1. In FIG. 1, the MIH service is located between Layer 3 (L3), i.e., a network layer in an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) model, and Layer 2 (L2), i.e., a data link layer in the ISO model. The MIH provides service support for mobility protocols, such as the Mobile Internet Protocol (MIP) and the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), above the Layer L3. At the same time, the MIH needs to use services at Layer 2 and layers below Layer 2. The MIH can provide three types of services, which are an MIH event service (ES), an MIH command service (CS), and an MIH information service (IS), respectively. The MIH ES provides a real-time transmission service of events below a link layer or in a remote link. The MIH CS provides a command transmission service that changes a status or a connection point of a bottom layer link. The MIH IS provides an information transmission service of network topology and position-related information.
The MIH service may be used between a mobile node (MN) and network infrastructure, or between the network infrastructure and a network node. Generally, when roaming to a foreign network, the MN can only access a visited network domain through interactions between an access authentication system of a visited domain and an access authentication system of a home domain. In order to accomplish rapid handover, the MN needs to access a visited domain MIH service entity, which results in a problem of how to ensure security of information between the MN and a visited domain MIH authenticator.
Currently, an authentication password is usually configured on the MN and the visited domain MIH authenticator in a manual mode, so as to ensure security of information between the MN and the visited domain MIH authenticator. However, the primitive mode of manually configuring the authentication password is cumbersome and easily results in errors, so that the extension and deployment of the MIH service is adversely affected.